This invention relates to external peripheral devices for personal computer systems. More specifically, this invention relates to external peripheral devices having a cable and a connector for connecting to a personal computer system.
As the drive to make personal computer systems smaller and smaller continues, some compromises have to be made in what devices get included inside the computer housing, itself. Certain components are still considered to be required elements within the computer. For example, a central processing unit, a main memory, bus connections and some form of mass data storage are found within almost all personal computer systems. Of course, the mass data storage component, usually a hard disk drive, may actually be left out of some desktop personal computer systems where it is possible to boot the computer from a network connection. For notebook personal computer systems, however, the computer must be a complete all-in-one unit. Thus, it is essential to have the hard drive, along with each and every element, including even a battery for providing the computer with its own power, within the housing of the computer. As such, it is very difficult to find components to take out of a notebook computer. Nevertheless, many notebook computer makers have determined that the floppy drive is not an essential element within the actual computer housing, so they have created external floppy drives for some notebook computer systems. These notebook computer systems are so small they are termed subnotebooks.
These external floppy drives are typically connected to the subnotebook by a cable to a special connector located on an external surface of the subnotebook. This connector may be a specially designated connector, or it may be a standard connector, such as a parallel or serial port that can double as the interface for the external floppy drive.
An external floppy drive usually requires a cable to connect to the computer system. This cable, if it is too long, can be rather unwieldy and difficult to manage when storing the external drive in a small case or just when carrying the device around. In fact, the dangling cable can be quite an annoyance. Some users may wrap the cable around the floppy drive, itself, but this means of storing the cable can be just a unwieldy as leaving the cable free to dangle wherever, since the connector at the end of the cable is still loose. If the cable, on the other hand, is too short, it may be difficult to position the drive in a usable place beside the computer during use. Thus, a need has arisen for some means to store the cable and the connector in an unobtrusive manner.